On paper, prostitution is illegal in India. But Red Light Despatch, a monthly magazine for prostitutes, is capturing on paper the trials and tribulations, the torture and harassment, and the feelings and emotions of India’s two million sex workers. First-person accounts of girls sold off to the flesh trade, poems and essays by prostitutes, book…
Monthly Archives: July 2007
Can bloggers be considered as reporters? Yes.
Who is a reporter? Are only those who work for a newspaper, magazine, TV or radio station, have an ID card, and draw a monthly cheque reporters? Can bloggers, sitting at home in their shorts with their modem by their side, be considered as reporters? Yes, says Howard Owens. “To me, a reporter means a…
It’s a mag, mag, mag world in India i.e. Bharat
The Indian edition of Vogue is due for launch this September. And Conde Nast is readying to unleash a slew of fashion, retail and niche magazines like Glamour, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller, Vanity Fair and Wired, according to Alex Kuruvilla, managing director of Conde Nast India. Read the full story here: Conde Nast to expand…
A face we saw often on BBC World is gone: RIP
Richard Stott, twice editor of the Daily Mirror, twice editor of The People, once editor of Today, and a regular on the BBC’s Dateline London programme, has passed away at age of 63. “Perhaps the story that sums up his charactor and dedication the most was that he was working to the last editing Alistair…
How the Indian media went completely bonkers
SUNAAD RAGHURAM writes: All is not too well in the immense country of Australia. Or so it seems. A country that is known as much for venom spewing, bad mouthing cricketers who always try their best to stamp their supremacy on the cricket field, also has some grossly inefficient investigators and law enforcers. Or so…
‘Get up and do it… even if you hate it!’
Cosmopolitan may be a magazine for the PYTs (pretty young things). But its editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown, who “liberated women’s magazines with her spunk and sexual brashness”, is a saintly 85, who has lorded over all the 59 editions of the magazine for the last 32 years. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Editing…
What one editor looks for in young journalists
# Curiosity # Scepticism # Flexibility # Public service Read the full article here: Job prerequisites Link via Journerdism
How blogging cost a Nepali reporter his job
When Krishna Dhungana, a reporter with the Nepali tabloid Naya Patrika began blogging for mysansar.com, he thought he would get on to the platform of personal publishing that has captivated millions around the world. Till… Till he wrote a piece called “Constituent Assembly and White Wine.” Dhungana was fired, and a colleague told him that…
Those who can, write. Those who can’t, edit?
“What exactly does an editor do?” It’s not an easy question to answer. Editors are craftsmen, ghosts, psychiatrists, bullies, sparring partners, experts, enablers, ignoramuses, translators, writers, goalies, friends, foremen, wimps, ditch diggers, mind readers, coaches, bomb throwers, muses and spittoons— sometimes all while working on the same piece. But, boy, do we need them? Read…
India’s first television news reader passes away
Doordarshan, the State-owned television channel in India, is reporting the death of Pratima Puri, the channel’s first news reader, when it went on air in 1959. Born Vidya Rawat, Puri belonged to a Gorkha family settled at Laal Paani in Simla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, according to a report in The Tribune earlier this…
‘Poshto, the Indian media’s priorities is all bull’
“‘Bipasha Basu says her chihuahua is like her son. Poshto, as she calls him, was gifted to her by beau John Abraham. The relationship, as per latest reports, is over and Bipasha is single after ten years. But Poshto surely is keeping her good company.’ “This sort of ‘news’ is so popular that it is…
Is free-market capitalism good for newspapers?
Time was when newspapers—and newspapermen—were the toast of the town. Feared, quoted, wooed and emulated, plays and movies were made of them. It wasn’t an idyll, of course, but there was a nobility of purpose. They were the eyes and ears of the voiceless, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Suddenly, newspapers worldwide seem…
10 fellowships on offer for development journos
PRESS RELEASE: The National Foundation for India (NFI), an autonomous, professionally managed grantmaking organisation, has announced 10 fellowships to facilitate a more informed development policy dialogue, and to encourage publication of well researched articles on development issues. Eight fellowships are in the print media category and two in the photojournalist category. The fellowships amount to…
A pioneering cartoonist passes away. RIP.
Harishchandra Lachke, the first cartoonist to have his work featured on the front page of The Times of India during British rule, has passed away in Poona at the age of 88. A Press Trust of India obituary says Lachke’s cartoon juxtaposing a pigeon and a nuclear bomb in the wake of the dropping of…
Kate-Duplicate? Kabhi kushi-Kabhi glum?
Say what you will, but the British papers are markedly more alive and refreshing than their American counterparts (as Tunku Varadarajan said here, and Matthew Engel said here). Have been and will probably always be. Surely, they are heavily opinionated “feral beasts“, but the British papers take themselves less seriously, are better written, more irreverent,…
Tide against trivia turning one anchor at a time
Another silly American story and another silly American anchor in another silly piece of posturing. Last month it was Paris Hilton, this month it is Lindsay Lohan. Last month it was an MSNBC anchor (Mika Brzezinski) who refused to read news about her, this month it is a CNN anchor (John Cafferty). For a media…
Be your own boss. Be greedy. And never retire.
At an interview several years ago, Rahul Bajaj, the energetic bossman of Bajaj Auto, was asked when he planned to retire from his job. “Retire? Who retires?” shot back the acid-tongued man. “Only fools retire.” A similar lesson in life comes courtesy of The Economist this week. It looks at Rupert Murdoch, 76, trying to…
Does print still break more stories than TV?
Outlook magazine editor Vinod Mehta has this item in his Delhi Diary this week: “David Lean when he was casting for Lawrence of Arabia approached the great theatre actor Albert Finney and offered him the role of Lawrence (which eventually went to Peter O’Toole). The actor declined. “Don’t you know I’ll make you a star,”…
Holes in the veil and fear in the hearts
Shortly after 9/11, America invaded Afghanistan in 2001 citing the plight of women in that country under the Taliban. But in the six years since, how the lot of the Hidden Half improved under the benign gaze of The Great Liberator? The July/August issue of Mother Jones is featuring a photo essay by Canadian photojournalist…
What’s your grammar quotient, Ms Grundy?
When the reporter promises to keep a secret (“Don’t worry. That will be just between you and I”); when the industry leader paints a rosy picture (“The future of this technology is obvious although you and me may not be around to see it”); when HR sends a stern memo on expenses (“in the future,…
IJR 